


Clare

by Tvieandli



Category: Superman (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-26
Updated: 2013-01-26
Packaged: 2017-11-27 01:03:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/656301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tvieandli/pseuds/Tvieandli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clare had been dead five years, and yet Martha Kent was still talking to her on the phone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clare

**Author's Note:**

> AU dealing with transgendered issues. Clark is still Superman, a baby that fell from the sky in a futuristic rocket, a writer for the Daily Planet, and horribly crushing on Lois Lane, but he also had to grow up with Clare.

Clare Kent died in an accident five years ago when Clark was twenty. A tragedy filled with flames that left Clark scarred for the rest of his life. Clare died, and Clark was left living a life without a part of him in a way he never thought he could.

That’s when he moved to Metropolis. Once Clare was buried, and the mourning was over, and he could move on with things. That’s when he started over. Clark had always wanted to be a writer, so he worked for a newspaper. He’d always wanted to live the city life, so he did.

He didn’t talk to his parents much after Clare died. Didn’t visit home, or really do much more than passively listen to the gossip he heard nearly years down the grape vine.

Clare had been dead for five years, and still, the only time Clark talked to his mother was when she wanted to talk to Clare. Clare had been dead five years, and yet Martha Kent was still talking to her on the phone.

Clark hung his head, pressing the crown of it into the wall as he cradled the receiver to his ear. He hated this routine. Ma would call, and he’d be left thinking about Clare, and his second half, so like a twin in so many ways. He would never forget the day she died. Not when he carried the scars from when Clare’s mangled breasts had been removed from his chest in order to reduce the chance of infection from the burns Clare had suffered. He touched them gingerly, feeling the raised tissue beneath the light cotton of his under shirt.

“Will you be able to make it out for the family reunion?” Ma asked, and Clark squeezed his eyes shut. He hated this. Hated lying.

“No,” he said, voice pitched higher so that he still sounded like Clare, despite the hormone’s, and all the changes. He’d worked on this, perfected it.

“Well why not?”

“I have a deadline I’m working to meet at my job, and I don’t have the time.”

“Well I would love to see my precious little Clare again. Why don’t you ever visit?”

He wasn’t going to cry, he told himself, pinching the bridge of his nose. He wasn’t going to cry this time. “I’m just really busy mom. There’s a lot going on here.”

“Are you ever going to bring home a nice boy? Your father, and I are starting to worry.”

The tears pricked behind his eyelids. He hated this. He hated it so very, very much “I don’t know, Ma,” he said, swallowing hard around a lump in his throat. “Look, I have somewhere I need to be, and I’m going to be late,” he lied. He barely listened to his mother’s understanding comments, hanging up the phone, and sitting down on the kitchen floor with his back to the wall.

He always promised himself he wouldn’t cry, that this time he wouldn’t break. He always lied.


End file.
